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The Tottenham right back has been first choice for the club since the 2011-12 season after a successful loan spell at Aston Villa and has grown into the role and is one of the main members of the squad that are now challenging for the Premier League.

LONDON COLNEY, ENGLAND – SEPTEMBER 10: Kyle Walker looks on during the England training session on September 10, 2012 in London Colney, England. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

9 – Dan Petrescu

The Romanian may have doubled up as a winger at times but his main position was right back and he was definitely a threat from the position. Most known for his time at Chelsea, he also turned out for Sheffield Wednesday, Bradford City and Southampton in England.

8 – Nathaniel Clyne

The 24 year old has been one of the successful transfers of the Brendan Rodgers era at Liverpool and will likely be one of the key members of Jurgen Klopp’s team going forward. Clyne impressed as a youngster at Crystal Palace and made the step up comfortably.

7 – Seamus Coleman

One of the bargains in Premier League history. When Everton paid £60,000 for the right back they wouldn’t have believed how good he will be seven years later. He is one of the most impressive full backs in the league and is a danger to the opposition.

6 – Stephen Carr

The right back has retired twice but somewhat surprisingly after he came back from his first retirement he arguably became an even more consistent player. He appeared over 200 times for first club Tottenham before moving onto Newcastle United and Birmingham City where his career was rejuvenated.

Manchester United were so desperate to get Pallister that they broke the record paid for a defender and the centre back delivered for them and was certainly worth the investment. Forming one of the best partnerships with Steve Bruce, he helped the club to four league titles.

9 – Vincent Kompany

One of the bargains of the Premier League era. Manchester City may be able to throw their money around these days but Kompany is still badly missed when he is out of the team and it would seem like no amount of money can replace the Belgian.

8 – Sami Hyypia

A Liverpool legend that spent 10 years at the club and certainly a fan favourite on the Kop. Winning many personal awards and helping the club win the Champions league in 2005 would have made not being able to win the league title slightly easier to take.

7 – Jaap Stam

This might be a strange inclusion in the list as the Dutchman only spent three seasons in the Premier League with Manchester United but his quality was there for everyone to see and it isn’t a surprise that he won the title every year he was there.

6 – Jamie Carragher

At the start of his career he was played in every position on the pitch but when he finally settled as a centre back, he was one of the most consistent to ever play in the position at club level. Was unlucky not to play more internationally.

At the age of 40 he is playing for Wigan Athletic but he will be fondly remembered by Bolton Wanderers fans as he helped them gain promotion to the top flight and then was a key part of them qualifying for Europe. Also featured for West Ham.

9 – Pepe Reina

Reina won the Premier League Golden Glove award three times during his eight year spell at Liverpool. At his very best he was undroppable and some were surprised that he was allowed to leave the club when he did and it’s argued he hasn’t been replaced properly.

8 – Brad Friedel

Despite not winning many trophies or awards he was by far one of the most consistent goalkeepers ever. Rarely made mistakes and didn’t miss a single Premier League game for eight seasons which just shows how reliable he was and even has a goal to his name.

7 – Shay Given

At 39 he is still contracted to Stoke City and it’s argued that Jack Butland is benefitting from his experience. He will forever be a hero at Newcastle United because with Given they were one of the top teams and played European football regularly and was sublime.

6 – Joe Hart

The England number one has the potential to go on to be one of the best goalkeepers in world football and is at exactly the right club to do that. He will probably be England captain one day and will lift many more trophies in his career.

Manchester City have a fantastic squad and will be hoping that under Manuel Pellegrini they can compete both in the Premier League and in Europe.

At home so far this season they have been very impressive on the whole but their away form has been suspect and if they are to be successful they will need to improve. All throughout the squad they have quality and it is difficult to choose my favourite player. Their captain Vincent Kompany is one of their most important players and could easily have been the one I chose and they have a number of midfielders that I love watching like Yaya Toure and David Silva but the player I like the most is Sergio Aguero.
Aguero is arguably the best and most in form out and out striker in the world right now and will always have a place in City’s fans hearts after scoring that dramatic winner against QPR in the last minute to win the title. This is probably the best moment ever in the Premier League and it could not have fallen to a better player. Jumping to this season he has already scored 13 goals in 13 games including five in four Champions League games to help lead his team into the knockout rounds of the competition which they have been desperate to achieve for years now.

When new players come into the Premier League there is always the argument that they need time to settle but not Aguero he has hit the ground running and has been pretty consistent and is a menace to opposition defences in every single game. To me he is undroppable, if Pellegrini has any sense he will put Aguero’s name first on the team sheet. This is harsh on his fellow strikers but will Edin Dzeko or Alvaro Negredo be able to score as consistently? I really like both of them but they are not in the same class as the Argentinean. You cannot argue with 43 goals in 73 league games.

What makes Aguero even more special in my opinion is that he always turns up for the big games and this is what separates him from most other players in the world, especially those that score a lot of goals because they get a lot of their goals against the ‘lesser’ teams in the league. Just look at his record against teams that are competing directly with City. While in Spain against Barcelona he scored six goals in 11 games. Against Chelsea five goals in nine games and Manchester United five goals in six games.

Looking at his international career he has scored 19 goals in 44 games which is not bad at all and he will be hoping that at the next World Cup in Brazil he, along with Lionel Messi can get the goals to win the trophy. Aguero is only 25 and will get better and better and is closing in on 200 career goals and if he stays at City he will definitely get to 100 Premier League goals in the next few seasons.

The Premier League will be very difficult to predict this season because of all the changes that have taken place over the summer.

Three of the top five have new managers so will that work in their favour or will it take them a while to adjust to their new jobs.
Manchester City under Manuel Pellegrini will be an interesting prospect because he does like his teams to play more attacking football and win every game that they play. This is different to former manager Roberto Mancini who at times was a little negative. The signings the club has made will surely improve the squad and I am excited to see how Stevan Jovetic does because he could easily be the signing of the season.

Jose Mourinho is back at Chelsea and this might just make them become the best team in the country once again. He has a great team to work with and will be hoping that he can replicate his first spell in charge. It will be interesting to see if he still favours the players that were there in his first spell like John Terry who should not be in a title winning first 11 anymore. He has a tough choice in picking his main striker this year because Romelu Lukaku, Fernando Torres and Demba Ba are all capable on their day.

Sir Alex Ferguson has left Manchester United in a very strong position so it should not be too hard for David Moyes to at least challenge for the title this season because they still have the same team. The Wayne Rooney saga over the summer will not have helped things and the fact that he has not been able to convince many players to join them will be a little concerning. There will be even more pressure on Robin Van Persie to succeed this season and Moyes has to hope they do not become a one man team.

Arsenal are another club that has struggled in convincing players that they are the team they should be joining but if they can bring in someone like Luis Suarez then they could be right up there come the end of the season. As much as Arsene Wenger thinks top four is good enough I believe this may be his last season in charge if they do not come close to the title again. They have been falling further and further behind their rivals and that is probably why they have tried to spend a lot of money this summer.

Tottenham Hotspur could be seen as outsiders for the title because at times they did play some good stuff last year but unfortunately a lot does rest on whether they can keep hold of Gareth Bale. I do not think they are a one man team but he did win a lot of games for them last year but the signing of Roberto Soldado is a very good one and if he hits the ground running they will have a clinical striker on their hands that will add goals consistently which Jermain Defoe and Emmanuel Adebayor failed to do last season.

Manchester City are looking for a new manager after they decided Roberto Mancini had not done a good enough all round job.
In their statement they seemed happy with the work the Italian did on the pitch but his work off it was not up to standard. Mancini did not have the greatest relationship with the board or his players and this has ended up working against him. But, I think he still did a good job and even if the players didn’t like him they still performed to a high level. The question now then is, would they have played even better if they had a different manager? The City board obviously feel that they will and with no trophies this season it was time to go. I really hope this isn’t the start of things to come at the club because I thought they understood football a bit more than other foreign owners and won’t just keep sacking managers every time they have a poor season. Mancini is a good manager but even at Inter Milan he never really came close to winning the Champions League so he was always going to get sacked sooner rather than later at Man City if this didn’t change.

But who will get the job next? The clear favourite is current Malaga manager Manuel Pellegrini. Make no mistake about it Pellegrini is a fantastic manager but he is also one of the most unlucky managers in world football. If you look down his honours as a manager there isn’t a lot to see but when you actually look at the statistics it makes you realise how brilliant he is. In his one season at Real Madrid they finished with 96 points, scoring over 100 goals and somehow still failed to clinch the title. It seems like he is going to get the job and he will yet again be a success but will he get the luck at Man City?
Jose Mourinho is also being linked with the job and this seems very unlikely at the moment with everyone expecting him to join Chelsea in the summer. But if Man City really want the ‘Special One’ then I think they could convince him to join them because they have a lot of money and the board seem a little less controlling than Roman Abramovich at Chelsea so that may just sway his decision. Very unlikely at this stage though.
The next option is someone that I feel has been harshly criticised this season and that man is Rafael Benitez. In my opinion he has done very well at Chelsea and could leave the club with a European trophy and a third place finish. I understand with the team he has they should possibly be closer to the title but with a 56% win record in the Premier League he has proven that if he is given a full season then they will be right in the mix come the end of the season. He came close to winning the title with Liverpool and now with Alex Ferguson leaving Manchester United the title race will be wide open and his experience of being at the very top might just give him the advantage.

Manchester United have won their 20th title with four games still to play and could finish the season on 96 points.

It has been a very good season for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side and one that will be remembered, especially after last season’s heartbreaking ending. They clearly didn’t want a repeat of that this year and have only lost four games all season as well as having a much better goal difference than their closest rivals which was once again Manchester City. At times earlier in the season there were questions about their defence but in recent weeks it has tightened up brilliantly which has taken the pressure off their attacking players.

One of these attacking players is Robin Van Persie who in my opinion has been the difference this season from last year. It is not only his goals that has made him such a good signing but his movement and his ability on the ball, he drags defenders out of position giving other players opportunities to score and even when he was on a goal scoring drought, he was still playing pretty well. 28 goals in all competitions is a great return and he will be hoping to hit 30 before the season is out. The other two main strikers have also chipped in with goals and Wayne Rooney and Javier Hernandez will have profited from playing alongside the former Arsenal man. Although there may be a few concerns with Rooney as it is the first time he is not the main man for a long time. Another slight concern might be the goal scoring return of Danny Welbeck but he has played on the wing at times this season and some of his appearances have been off the bench. In my opinion though he is certainly good enough to be the fourth choice striker.

It has been quite a strange season for the clubs midfielders though as none of the attacking ones have really stood out for prolonged periods of time. Nani, Ashley Young, Shinji Kagawa and Antonio Valencia just haven’t quite been at their best this season and will be hoping they get another chance to impress next season because I am a little worried about the future of some of these at the club. However, Michael Carrick, whether rightly or wrongly has been included in the PFA Player of the Year nominations, has had a fantastic season and just proved why he should have more England caps than he does.

Yet again the defence has been good at times but there have also been mistakes in their defence that have not quite cost them but made a few games more difficult than they should have been. Rafael at right back looks very promising and in a few years could be considered the best in the world, as long as he improves his defending slightly. However, these days it seems more important to be able to attack from full back than to actually defend so he is ok in that respect. Also David De Gea deserves a mention because everyone was jumping on his mistakes but when he was keeping clean sheet after clean sheet nobody was praising him. He is another that will get better and I don’t think people consider his age when criticising him. He is only young (especially for a goalkeeper) and will make mistakes but he has bounced back from every one of them.

Jack Rodwell has picked up another injury in Manchester City’s victory over Aston Villa and things just keep going from bad to worse for him.
Rodwell signed for City in the summer for £12 million with it potentially rising to £17 million and he just has not been able to prove himself on the pitch and this partly down to the fact that he may not quite be good enough for a team challenging for the title and partly down to the fact that he cannot stay fit. It should not be that surprising that he has been getting injured as he spent a lot of time in the treatement room at his former club Everton.

He is still only 21 and I personally hope he does get over these injury problems because he can become one of the best players in the Premier Leaguen either as a holding midfielder or a centre back and will surely add to his two England caps which he has already won. It is sad to see a player with such potential struggling with injuries but a lot of players have came through these bad injury spells in the past and have gone onto have successful careers. The most noticeable being Ryan Giggs at Manchester United, who struggled a little early on his career with injuries and is now going to play in his 1000th career game.

Rodwell though does need to get it right next season or he may not have the career that everyone expected of him and it would be yet another player that could not live up to their potential because of injuries.

David Beckham has announced that he will be leaving LA Galaxy in December and this has led to a host of clubs wanting the former England captain.

Beckham, has been at the club since 2007 and has played 116 games for the club scoring 20 goals so he has been a decent servant to the American side and he did capture the attention of the public when he first went over there. It is unclear now whether it will create more interest in the sport over there, because it is not as big as in Europe and this transfer was trying to make it more of a competitor to the likes of basketball and American Football. During his time there he went on loan twice to AC Milan, so maybe the Italian team would have him back on a permanent basis, but to me, this seems unlikely and I think he may be after a completely different challenge.

PSG are the clear favourites at the moment to sign the midfielder and that is because they can offer him a wage that cannot be matched by many other clubs in the world, apart from possibly Manchester City. Which is a club I am fairly certain he will not be joining. The French club though want success and are trying to sign a lot of big names to get them to the very top and competing with the likes of Barcelona. It would be strange if he did sign for them because he is getting old now and I don’t think he is the type of player they should be looking at. They need players that can come in and improve over the next few years, although saying that Beckham’s experience around the dressing room could make all the difference.

Personally, I think he will go out and try somewhere completely different because he has accomplished a lot in Europe and has stated before that the only English club he will play for is Manchester United. There is a small chance they could sign him but they already have Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes in their midfield so it doesn’t seem likely that Alex Ferguson will sign another over 30 player.

A few players are going to China at the moment and maybe he wants to try over there and see if he can make an impact. For purely commercial reasons, he would be a success and he would probably make an impact in the leagues so this could be an option for him. But, from the early odds it looks like he may be going over to Australia with Adelaide United and Melbourne Heart strongly linked with him. Beckham, is a legend and he will be a success anywhere he goes, both on and off the pitch, so if these teams are serious about signing him then they may have to pay quite a high wage but they will surely get a lot of their money back just from shirt sales and other merchandising opportunities.

Chelsea remain top of the table after beating Norwich City and more and more people are now starting to accept that they are genuine title contenders. With their attacking intent, they will be a threat to anyone and I am sure the two Manchester club are now very worried. The rest of the top four is now starting to take normal shape with Manchester United and City in second and third but Everton are still clinging onto fourth place with Tottenham just behind them on goal difference. At the bottom of the table it isn’t looking great for QPR, Reading and Norwich who haven’t won a game yet. But, they will still be positive as Southampton and Aston Villa seem to be struggling at the minute.

So, onto team of the weekend and in my opinion Manchester City deserve a lot of praise because they had to reshuffle their defence and were so comfortable against Sunderland it was unbelievable. They attacked well but more importantly they were solid at the back and kept their first clean sheet of the season so Roberto Mancini will be looking to build on this performance. They did exactly what was needed and didn’t give the away team a sniff, maybe it was a bad day for Sunderland because they never really looked like scoring but credit has to go to the two centre backs who probably haven’t played together that often in Micah Richards and Joleon Lescott. The other team from Manchester, performed brilliantly away to Newcastle United and deserved their comfortable victory and could have made it more if Danny Welbeck had his shooting boots on. But, in the first 15 minutes, I don’t think anyone could have lived with them, never mind an injury hit Newcastle defence. Everyone on the pitch played very well and they seemed to be enjoying their football and when they did come under pressure, they were strong enough to remain solid and not concede. However, there are still question marks over goalkeeper David De Gea who was poor again and almost cost them a goal. But, my team of the weekend is Arsenal, because they won a game a few years ago they certainly wouldn’t have away to West Ham. What makes it more special is that they came from 1-0 down and they even managed to control Andy Carroll for the majority of the game and often allowed him to win the first ball and just challenge for the second ball. The concentration of the back four was particularly impressive and when you have players like Lukas Podolski and Santi Cazorla you know they will create chances.

Unfortunately, no Arsenal players have made it onto my contenders for player of the weekend but Cazorla was very close, however fellow Spaniard Juan Mata deserves a mention instead because yet again he was fantastic, as he has been all season. He hasn’t been getting the headlines because of Eden Hazard but he has been equally impressive and is one of the cleverest players in the Premier League right now and it is remarkable that Spain can’t find a place for him in their squad. He got another two assists to his name and he also very reliable on the ball and won’t try silly things and if there is an easy option on, he will use it. Aleksandar Kolarov, though was equally impressive as he scored a fantastic free kick and set up Sergio Aguero in the second half to put the game beyond doubt. He has improved defensively in recent months and everyone knows what he is capable of going forward so Gael Clichy might find it difficult to get back in the team. He is always a threat to the opposition and certainly is a useful asset to the team, especially at home. My player of the weekend though actually goes to a goalkeeper who wasn’t first choice at the start of the season but after his performance this weekend, he is guaranteed a place for a while to come. Reading’s Alex McCarthy, produced save after save to secure what could be a vital point against Swansea City. His team may have thrown away a two goal lead but he was sensational and if it wasn’t for him then they would have surely lost the game. If they stay up by one point at the end of the season, I think Brian McDermott and the fans will look back at this performance and just realise how good of a performance it was. To pick up points away from home in the Premier League, you need special performances, and this was certainly one of them.

Onto, game of the weekend and obviously that Swansea Reading game will be high up the list as there were so many chances and both teams will be thinking that they should have an extra two points on their current tally. After Swansea came from two down, I expected them to win but as said Alex McCarthy was inspired form and couldn’t be beaten again. Reading will be the most worried though because they just can’t seem to get that first win and if they had held on last week against Newcastle then they probably would have seen this out too but that first win is usually the hardest. QPR, similarly need that first win and they put in a good performance away to West Brom but unfortunately, the surprise package of the Premier League so far were even better and the game went right down to the last minute and this could have also ended a draw after one of the sides were 2-0 up but it wasn’t to be and West Brom held on for a 3-2 win. The game of the weekend for me was actually West Ham against Arsenal because it was two very different styles playing against each other and just showed what English football is all about. Arsenal were sublime until West Ham somehow took the lead and from there it could have went either way and Arsenal just had enough on the day and finished off the game with a fantastic goal. Both managers know how they want to play and for that reason, the game was action packed and there were plenty of counter attacks leading to chances and all of the goals had a lot of quality about them.